Out of Darkness and Into the Light
by noiseinthe-system
Summary: Post-17x2 Tiva reunion (*cough* we all need *cough*)


The flight to Paris is less awful than she thought it would be. After years of painful longing for the people she loves most in the world, seven hours stuck in a metal tube sounded like literal torture—and she has had several experiences with literal torture, so this was not a claim she made lightly.

But sheer exhaustion, both physical and mental, overtook her right down to her bones the second she hit her aisle seat. She passed out into a dreamless sleep before the plane even reached altitude—a sleep so deep and absolute that she only awoke a couple of times when her seat neighbor "accidentally" elbowed her shoulder when she started to snore too loudly.

So yes, she finds herself thinking as she grabs her duffel from the bin overhead and waits in line to disembark, the flight to Paris was less awful than she thought it would be.

Yet the pit in her stomach and a heaviness in her body is inexorable as she starts to make her way off the plane. She still feels drained despite her seven-hour nap. She feels like she could sleep for another week and it would not be enough.

_How could you be thinking about sleep right now? _she admonishes herself. _Tali is so close! And Tony…_

She had spoken briefly to him on Gibbs' phone, but it was weird—surreal. Like talking to someone from a different lifetime. Hearing him tell her how happy he was to hear her voice was like two worlds converging, and she could not summon any semblance of true emotion when she told him where to meet her flight once she arrived. They did not discuss where she had been or if she is okay. The answers were just too complicated. But questions not asked hung heavily in the air, and they made her skin crawl.

Every step through French customs—every step closer to the people who might be her family—feels heavier than the last. She trudges forth, wishing above all else that she could just rest.

And it feels _awful_. She should be excited! She should be running, pushing her way through customs in order to see them as soon as she possibly could! It has been _so long_,and after everything she had sacrificed, it was finally time to receive her reward.

Her Tali.

Tony.

So why, then, are dread and exhaustion the only emotions she feels?

Those, and guilt, she realizes, methodically picking through her feelings. Guilt for not being more excited. Guilt for being gone. Maybe even guilt for coming back.

She robotically answers the custom officer's questions and soon finds herself stepping into the brightly lit arrivals opening, where she cannot help but stop dead in her tracks when she finds their faces in the crowd of friends and family members picking up loved ones from their flights.

They look so _different_. Older. Tony's hair is thinner and grayer, and his face rounder. It almost makes her smile. But then she sees Tali in his arms—God, is that really her daughter? She is no longer a baby—she is a child! A child with unruly curls and dark eyes like hers, but with a face that is entirely her father's.

She wants nothing more than to run to them as fast as she can, to embrace them and never let go, but she stays where she is. She has been running for so long, and she has finally reached capacity. Her duffel slips from her shoulder and falls softly onto the tile floor.

"Daddy!" Tali voice rings out against the buzz of the airport as she wiggles out of Tony's arms. She pulls at his hand and begins to run towards her as she yells, "Daddy, look, it's Ima!"

She dashes across the welcome area with a wide smile that is somehow both hers and Tony's. She is missing a front tooth.

And then Tali is flinging herself against her mother with force too strong for five-year-old.

As though hit with an electric shock, her brain suddenly starts churning again—the numbness that had taken over her body dissipates like smoke in air, and all at once a surge of emotion rushes forth.

She drops to her knees and scoops Tali into her arms, entangling her fingers into her thick curls and pulling her closer as her eyes sting with tears.

"Tali!" she exclaims in both relief and disbelief. Her throat feels blocked, like she swallowed a stone, and she cannot get any other words out. But she does not have to, because Tali babbles, "Ima, you're back! You're here! I missed you, Ima, I love you—"

Eventually, her daughter leans away to hold up the star pendant on a long, gold chain, and tells her, "Look, Ima, Daddy gave me your necklace. I kept it safe for you."

She brushes her fingers across the familiar old star which she had last seen in Tony's hands, back when he had tracked her down to her childhood home in Israel almost six years prior.

"It looks beautiful on you," she whispers, which makes Tali beam.

She wipes at cheeks as she gets back onto her feet and finds Tony watching her with those soft, topaz blue eyes that she missed so deeply. Eyes that was unsure she would ever be this close to again—close enough to look into them; to see her own reflection there.

"Tony," she breathes.

"Ziva," he whispers back. And then he has her encompassed in his arms, squeezing her gently, firmly. "God, I missed you so much."

"You are here," she chokes out into his shoulder, incredulity thick in her voice. It is the only thing she can say. Phrases dance on her tongue—I missed you, I love you, I am so, so sorry—but they are all too ineffectual. They do not adequately express how it feels to see them. She is not sure the proper words exist at all in any of the ten languages she knows.

"Of course we're here," Tony tells her, drawing away to reveal his own eyes filling. Lines crinkle around them as he smiles and reminds her, "We couldn't live without you."


End file.
